Forget Toronto's overall record. Pretty darn bad indeed. Instead, look at their record for December. 5 and 6. And one of those losses was in OT to the Wizards. SA just beat them, but only by 5 points. I think they were the last team to beat NJ. And Toronto has knocked off Miami already.

As long as we don't come out flat, we should get another 'W' here. Our bigs just have to check on Bosh, we should be okay. Offensively, whether it's a fast pace game or a half court game, we should win hands down.

Hopefully, the bench will get more minutes in this game and get our starters healthy and ready for the Heat game.

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darko padded his stats by giving toronto another possesion just so he could get a block. he tried to get an assist to jmax but it didn't happen. good garbage time performance. i bet people will still say he didn't try hard enough maybe he could have jacked up a couple more shots. he did try my 1 -2 shot per minute theory.

i think flip should have played the bench much longer. they actually extended the lead in the first half. i am so happy to see mcdyess has his shot going now. evans also played a really good game.

I enjoyed the game, good thing the garbage time wasn't any longer - they were really giving up the lead at the end there. Of course it looked like Toronto was playing all or most of their starters until the very end. What does Mitchell (or any coach) say to his team after a loss like that, where they just plain got their butts kicked??

I enjoyed the game, good thing the garbage time wasn't any longer - they were really giving up the lead at the end there.

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I've got to say I was a little surprised, and somewhat disappointed that the reserves didn't get in earlier in the 4th. For most of what I saw of the game (missed only the first quarter) Dyess, Arroyo, and Evans were playing well. I couldn't see any harm, up around 15 points, in subbing more liberally from the far end of the bench with 6, even 8 minutes to go in the 4th. It was clear that the starters were able to do pretty much what they wanted. So that if subbing produced a drastic loss of the lead -- say toronto got it down to 6 or 8 -- you put the starters back in and that's that. But flip put Chauncey back in at one point (and i know he did drain a triple to put them up 17) when they were still up 14 -- like he was nervous or something.

I can't say I'm one of these purists that expects that guys are going to perform at the same level whether they get in midway through a quarter when there are still 2 or 3 starters in or in the final 2 minutes, when everyone on both teams seems to be just running around like chickens with their heads cut off. In that sense, the lead might, ironically, have been better preserved if Flip had gone to the GT roster *earlier* in the 4th quarter.

I am ill at the moment. Seemed to have picked up a nasty little cold Christmas day. But here is my best anyway.

Ok, the starters came out good, but seemed to go completely flat. Then in the 2nd half, same thing. Came out good but went flat again, letting the Raptors right back into the game. Definitely a case of the starters just overlooking a weaker team between two bigger games on the schedule.

We shot a lot of threes. We started out 8 for 12 on the 3's. By the end of the game, I guess we made about 3 more in 11 more tries. Hey, it still came out in our favor big time altogether. Flip apparently just told the guys to keep right on shooting them if left open. Rip hit one. Tay too. And Evans. And the usual suspects, Sheed and CB.

The bench came in and ran the score up for us real nice. This started with a good run with just Arroyo, Delfino, and Dyess in the game off the bench. And Toronto not even scoring so much as a point. (Toronto had been on a tear just before Arroyo got into the game.)Dyess hit his first 4 shots. I think he only missed one for the game. A lot of points and rebounds from Dyess tonight. Something like 13 and 11.

The Pistons scored over 30 in the first quarter. It was the defense of the starters that just seemed to vanish midway thru that quarter. Same old theme. Their bigs scoring on us, grabbing offensive boards and scoring on us some more. It was quite a contrast when the subs came in and just shut Toronto down.

Evans played a darn good game, although he was in there in the 4th quarter as Toronto made a run, forcing all of our starters to return. (Except Ben who had been shaken up by a shot by Dyess across the mouth. Gee, I guess Dyess is pretty desperate for playing time. lol) Evans hit his triple. And he scored around the basket several times, once off his own dribble. The trend of Evans moving the ball like that the last few games is great. And he also moved without the ball well a time or two for scores around the basket. The Pistons experimented a couple of times with Evans helping move the ball up. Pretty ugly stuff, but I guess a guy has to learn sometime. Also, this is something new for Evans, scoring around the basket several times in the same game. Remember when I mentioned he posted up last game and missed. Even though he missed, that was practice. Today, the practice payed off as Evans managed a few times to just rise up and hit a short jumper around the basket.

Now, Arroyo and Delfino did great for us in the first half. There reward? No Delfino except garbage time in the 2nd half. Arroyo hardly played in the 2nd half. Pretty obvious they are giving Evans more time to do some on the job training. Perfectly ok. Evans getting better means the bench getting better.

Arroyo hit a little push shot over Bosh. Delfino hit a long two. Arroyo had 4 assists in his 12 minutes.

Arroyo fed Darko for a dunk in garbage time. Evans fed Maxiell to give him a post up attempt. Man, Maxiell sure needs a lot more of those attempts. And preferrably in the 2nd quarter. Get the guy in the game Flip. And Darko.

Tay ended up scoring about 20 points in this game. Going inside a lot. Yes, he could do even more if we were not shooting so many triples tonight. But can't complain about Tay at all. Long arms for defense and lots of height to constantly overmatch the other team's guards.

Rip scored plenty. Inside a lot. I mean driving inside a lot. Man has he gotten good at it. That triple and some midrangers too. And of course, if he goes inside and gets fouled, he makes his free throws. Just an excellent game by Rip.

CB got 13 assists and 21 points, mostly on 5 triples. What can you say. When the team needed some scoring to get them out of a funk there at the end of the game, CB comes thru.

Sheed seemed to have ran out of steam by the end of the game. Play Darko coach. This is a bit rediculous.

Man am I getting a headache.

Now, in the 2nd quarter, the bench played a whole lot. Kind of like the tale of two coaches. No problem in the 2nd quarter, but in the 4th quarter, there we see Billups play about the whole thing. Worse, we even tried going small again. Arroyo, Rip, Evans at small forward, Dyess, Sheed. Just does not work. Again, experimentation going on here rather than just tyring to win the game.

We played the unit of Arroyo, Evans, Delfino, Dyess, and Sheed extensively in the 2nd quarter. They did so good, you wonder why they just did not finish the game up. That good. Lots of scoring, and Toronto scoring precious little. During this stretch, Evans I think took and made one triple. Sheed might have taken a couple. But mostly, with these guys on the floor, the ball is seen going inside over and over. Very effective. And very little fast break ops for the other team off our misses. That is, if we don't get the offensive rebound and they don't get the ball at all. Just in case you wonder why our defense is so good with Arroyo in. Arroyo does not take threes. That helps your defense. I could think of more, but I think I will instead pop some motrin. Good nite all and GO PISTONS!!!!!

What a good game - Bosh had a great night tonight. He made Sheed look a little slow on his footing. The Pistons did dominate tonight though, man its so good to see a game - its been a while since the last whooping.

Arroyo impressed me tonight. He looked a little more on the tip of his toes kinda and that double pump shot in the paint was great as well as that little floater. He should drive more often cause his shot isn't developed well enough yet (take some pointers from Chauncey! You got the ability too!)

I'd still trade for Mike James. Tonight was just a situation where they know how he plays cause they've played with eachother before - usually Mike has his game on a lot better than this.

Evans played a great game, showing the range at key moments which was definately a good sign. I know at Christmas it was a little embarrassing missing that dunk - he made up with it for tonight's performance.

The starters were amazing. We get stupid Canadian announcers (its equivalently bad to American hockey announcers) here but they made a pretty good quote when they said, "They may not be the best five starting. But they are the best starting five."

And Darko was non-existent. I don't remember this incident with the padding of the stats...maybe it was cause I was watching the Leaf game in the end hehe

GO LEAFS GO!

PS Anyone else have a heart attack when Ben was down? Ben NEVER goes down. That had my quiet for a good while.

I am ill at the moment. Seemed to have picked up a nasty little cold Christmas day. But here is my best anyway.

Ok, the starters came out good, but seemed to go completely flat. Then in the 2nd half, same thing. Came out good but went flat again, letting the Raptors right back into the game. Definitely a case of the starters just overlooking a weaker team between two bigger games on the schedule.

We shot a lot of threes. We started out 8 for 12 on the 3's. By the end of the game, I guess we made about 3 more in 11 more tries. Hey, it still came out in our favor big time altogether. Flip apparently just told the guys to keep right on shooting them if left open. Rip hit one. Tay too. And Evans. And the usual suspects, Sheed and CB.

The bench came in and ran the score up for us real nice. This started with a good run with just Arroyo, Delfino, and Dyess in the game off the bench. And Toronto not even scoring so much as a point. (Toronto had been on a tear just before Arroyo got into the game.)Dyess hit his first 4 shots. I think he only missed one for the game. A lot of points and rebounds from Dyess tonight. Something like 13 and 11.

The Pistons scored over 30 in the first quarter. It was the defense of the starters that just seemed to vanish midway thru that quarter. Same old theme. Their bigs scoring on us, grabbing offensive boards and scoring on us some more. It was quite a contrast when the subs came in and just shut Toronto down.

Evans played a darn good game, although he was in there in the 4th quarter as Toronto made a run, forcing all of our starters to return. (Except Ben who had been shaken up by a shot by Dyess across the mouth. Gee, I guess Dyess is pretty desperate for playing time. lol) Evans hit his triple. And he scored around the basket several times, once off his own dribble. The trend of Evans moving the ball like that the last few games is great. And he also moved without the ball well a time or two for scores around the basket. The Pistons experimented a couple of times with Evans helping move the ball up. Pretty ugly stuff, but I guess a guy has to learn sometime. Also, this is something new for Evans, scoring around the basket several times in the same game. Remember when I mentioned he posted up last game and missed. Even though he missed, that was practice. Today, the practice payed off as Evans managed a few times to just rise up and hit a short jumper around the basket.</B></B></B>

Now, Arroyo and Delfino did great for us in the first half. There reward? No Delfino except garbage time in the 2nd half. Arroyo hardly played in the 2nd half. Pretty obvious they are giving Evans more time to do some on the job training. Perfectly ok. Evans getting better means the bench getting better.

Arroyo hit a little push shot over Bosh. Delfino hit a long two. Arroyo had 4 assists in his 12 minutes.

Arroyo fed Darko for a dunk in garbage time. Evans fed Maxiell to give him a post up attempt. Man, Maxiell sure needs a lot more of those attempts. And preferrably in the 2nd quarter. Get the guy in the game Flip. And Darko.

Tay ended up scoring about 20 points in this game. Going inside a lot. Yes, he could do even more if we were not shooting so many triples tonight. But can't complain about Tay at all. Long arms for defense and lots of height to constantly overmatch the other team's guards.

Rip scored plenty. Inside a lot. I mean driving inside a lot. Man has he gotten good at it. That triple and some midrangers too. And of course, if he goes inside and gets fouled, he makes his free throws. Just an excellent game by Rip.

CB got 13 assists and 21 points, mostly on 5 triples. What can you say. When the team needed some scoring to get them out of a funk there at the end of the game, CB comes thru.

Sheed seemed to have ran out of steam by the end of the game. Play Darko coach. This is a bit rediculous.

Man am I getting a headache.

Now, in the 2nd quarter, the bench played a whole lot. Kind of like the tale of two coaches. No problem in the 2nd quarter, but in the 4th quarter, there we see Billups play about the whole thing. Worse, we even tried going small again. Arroyo, Rip, Evans at small forward, Dyess, Sheed. Just does not work. Again, experimentation going on here rather than just tyring to win the game.

We played the unit of Arroyo, Evans, Delfino, Dyess, and Sheed extensively in the 2nd quarter. They did so good, you wonder why they just did not finish the game up. That good. Lots of scoring, and Toronto scoring precious little. During this stretch, Evans I think took and made one triple. Sheed might have taken a couple. But mostly, with these guys on the floor, the ball is seen going inside over and over. Very effective. And very little fast break ops for the other team off our misses. That is, if we don't get the offensive rebound and they don't get the ball at all. Just in case you wonder why our defense is so good with Arroyo in. Arroyo does not take threes. That helps your defense. I could think of more, but I think I will instead pop some motrin. Good nite all and GO PISTONS!!!!!</B></B></B>

darko padded his stats by giving toronto another possesion just so he could get a block. he tried to get an assist to jmax but it didn't happen. good garbage time performance. i bet people will still say he didn't try hard enough maybe he could have jacked up a couple more shots. he did try my 1 -2 shot per minute theory.

i think flip should have played the bench much longer. they actually extended the lead in the first half. i am so happy to see mcdyess has his shot going now. evans also played a really good game.

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Just got back from the game after waiting out the crowd, which was slow to leave. Let me just say that the Palace parking situation is pretty much a joke. Very slow getting in and outta there.

The guy sitting next to me starting calling for Darko in the first quarter, which was laughable. Darko did play very well for the 1:25 he was in there. Seems to me that if they want to develop his offensive game that Flip would run some specific plays for him, which didn't happen. For Darko, this is old hat. He's getting the same treatment from Flip as he did Brown (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with how he is being handled because I don't have all the information). He got a dunk and made a nice pass. He brought decent defensive intensity although Villanueva made him look silly on one play.

It was a tough game to watch for me. Bosh was George Gervin/Jamal Wilkes silky smooth and just plain sick. The guy dropped a bunch on Detroit tonight and didn't break a sweat doing it. He is very sound fundamentally. I kept telling my companions that the guy could be coming of our bench. Speaking of Toronto's bench, some of their guys looked guy, including Calderon and the foul-prone Villanueva.

I really think Sheed could have gone off in this one with Bonner and Rose on him (at times). The Sheed-Rose matchup was pretty interesting. Rose did nothing with Sheed on him.

I thought Rip would have a good game and he had an efficient one. He sat for a long time in the second half. Not sure why.

As others have pointed out, the Detroit bench came in and added some intensity for the lethargic starters. The bench played extremely well. Evans, especially, brought mad hops and the kind of pestering around the offensive hoop that drives opponents' nuts.

I agree with bballjay above about how late the bench got in. That was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. Get those starters outta there, Flip.